Farm accidents usually go unreported unless there is a personal injury. Many farm accidents do occur during the transportation of grain. The potential accidents caused by an unhooked wagon parked on a hillside, or a wagon breaking loose during transport are too great to be overlooked. While it is true that brakes are now available for farm wagons, many operators do not take the time to use them properly during busy harvesting operations, or inexperienced operators may not know how to use them properly.
Today's large tractors can pull one or two fully loaded wagons, each with 400 or more bushel capacity, at transport speeds. But, the operator must be able to stop the rig within safe limits. If the wagon has no brakes, the whole stopping burden falls on the tractor (or truck). Problems do develop on downgrades or slippery surfaces, even for large tractors, and if the tractor is considerably lighter than the loaded wagon, stopping is difficult and dangerous. Going up or down grades is also a concern. The tractor must have the power, weight, traction, and braking ability to control the load. It must not be "overwhelmed" on descents with the danger of jackknifing or being pushed off the road, and it must be able to prevent rollback when stopped on an upgrade.
The placing of brakes on wagons greatly decreases the stopping distance of the tractor and the wagon. However, the operator may not be able to manually actuate such brakes in an emergency.
Therefore, a principal object of this invention is to provide an automatic control system for the emergency and variable brake systems of a towed vehicle.
A further object of the invention is to provide means that will automatically implement the brake control system of the towed vehicle upon connection of a drawbar to the vehicle so that the operator will not have to remember to implement the system.
A still further object of the invention is to provide an automatic control system which is easily adaptable to existing brake systems of typical towed vehicles.
These and other objects will be apparent to those skilled in the art.